


daisies and lilacs

by Pinnacle of Failure (Cromirn)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Hallucinations, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Schizophrenia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 13:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16873383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cromirn/pseuds/Pinnacle%20of%20Failure
Summary: She's always seen them. Sometimes they scare her, like every shadow to a child should. But there's something to them that she doesn't have, something that she doesn't want.





	daisies and lilacs

It’s been with Sakura for a long time now. The shadows, the little movements at the sides of her vision. She doesn't see them, but they are there with her. Always.

The children at school make fun of her.

.  
.

“What are you looking at me for?”

“I saw something behind you, I thought you should know.”

“Ha, nothing’s ever gonna get behind me! My brother is a jounen and would protect me always!”

.  
.

They never come close to her. The wisps of people and the other children. She nevers makes any friends, they never give her a chance.

.  
.

“Hey! I can see you, why don’t you come out?”

.

“Please? I promise I won't hurt you. I just want to talk to you.”

.

“Why don’t you come out from there? I just saw you, I know you’re there. I’ve got some candy if you want some.”

.  
.

She tried to make friends once. But like the Ones Who Hide, they don’t give her a chance.

.  
.

“Hey, can I sit with you?”

“What? Of course not, freak, your forehead is enough for two, and you talk to things that aren’t there!”

“But… I just want…”

.  
.

Sometimes the Ones Who Hide show themselves as people they are not. She recognizes this, and knows that this is wrong. That they wear the faces they do not own.

She tells her father, but he doesn't believe her. He tells her to go and play with her ‘friends’. She tries and tell her mother, but her mother doesn't answer. She never answers.

She tries and tells her friends. But they’re not her friends. They have made that point clear.

.  
.

“Good morning, Hirahana-san!”

“Oh, good morning to you too, dear. Here, give these to your mother, these should help!”

“Thank you so much, Hirahana-san!”

.  
.

They don’t work. Her mother is sick, and it only gets worse.

That face didn’t belong to Hirahana-san.

.  
.

Sakura loves Sasuke. He doesn’t love her back, but it’s always been like that. No one has truly loved her.

.  
.

“Sasuke-kun, I made some dumplings, would you like some?”

“No, I don’t want your dumplings. Go away.”

.  
.

She knows her mother knows something. She knows her father knows something. They don’t tell her, no one tells her anything anymore.

She remembers they used to tell her stories before she went to bed, gave her a kiss on the forehead, on the cheek and tucked her in. She remembers her fathers soft hands resting on her face, telling her to close her eyes, to think happy things to keep the bad dreams away.

Her mother was scared of the dark. The house was always bright. She has no reason to have bad dreams. Why did he tell her that?

Now the house is dark at night. She is nine. No one tells her anything, and she only wants to know more.

.  
.

“Hey, I’d like to check this book out, if that’s okay.”

“Oh, sure, sweetheart! Just let me see the title… There you go! Have a nice day!”

“Aha, you too…”

.  
.

When she reads too much after a stressful day, her mind can’t take it. She’ll cry in her books, or maybe into a pillow, and her head will pulse. Sometimes it gets bad. She’ll be blinded by her own eyes, feel things that aren’t really there.

Sometimes the Ones Who Hide actually look at her. Their faces are not natural. She fears them for just that moment, fears them for what they are, for what they could do to her. Fears them because she doesn’t know them.

.  
.

She tries to make life better. She reads a lot. She keeps little knick knacks on her desk and her walls, filling up all of the empty space she can find.

But he always comes home, and he tells her to get rid of them. To hide them. Most of them were stolen to begin with, but she loved them. She loved them with her everything and yet daddy always had her take them down and throw them away.

She realizes she hates him when it is too late. She’s now in her last year of academy, and she wants out.

The shadows never left her in those years. Behind her desk. Underneath her bed. Hidden amongst her clothes.

They never left.

She loves them, and she knows they do not give her that gift.

.  
.

“Do you think that things will change? That I will leave my father, get my own home. A place I actually get to call home.”

.

“I wish you all could talk to me. I talk to you, and I really like it. But it gets hard to talk when I don’t know what to talk about. I don’t know what you all even like.”

.

“He is so kind to me. He’s not like the others, he doesn’t call me names, nothing too bad anyway. He’s just… angry at life. At what could have been and what he had lost.”

.  
.

Sakura keeps up with her studies. She reads, and she talks. She talks about everything and nothing to an ear that’ll listen. It leads her to a boy too happy with his past, who is oblivious to the names called out at him, yet so, so aware at what they mean.

He’s nice. Too nice, it’s like eating too much candy after a long day filled with sweets. Like orange juice after brushing your teeth. It hurts her teeth thinking about it. But she likes him, and that’s what really matters.

Her father doesn’t mind that she sleeps with Naruto. He tells her that he’d done worse in his youth, and nothing she could do would compare to that. Sakura’s face bleeds a vicious red and she tells him that ‘no, not like that, never like that’.

Time passes like it does, and they sit in their class, waiting for who they will be teamed with. The wisps of smoke at her peripherals turn human once, and twice, and she smiles.

They never have been so excited for her.

.  
.

“Squad seven will consist of Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, and Haruno Sakura.”

“WHAT! No, no, there HAS to be a mistake, there’s no fucking way I’ve been placed with that loser!”

“Naruto! Watch your language or I’ll have to send you-”

.  
.

Their squad leader is late. She doesn’t even know him and she already hates him. He’s the backbone of what makes a squad a squad, and yet he has the audacity to be late?

Naruto sets something up in the background, his fingers nimble and deft and he is quiet. Sakura knows how he learned that, and she never felt any prouder. He looks over at her, his too smart eyes pining for her acceptance, and his grin is bright and white as he gives her a thumbs up.

She sits, and she reads. Sasuke is nestled somewhere behind her, but she knows he needs his space. He doesn’t like any of them, so she wants to left him get used to their presence.

The door creaks open, and the bucket falls. It clatters amongst the splash, and Naruto shouts out a laugh.

Sakura almost regrets letting him do his ‘little’ prank.

“Ahh,” Hatake-sensei drawls, “Just when my day was getting a little better.”

A frozen ball of anxiety drops into her gut, curling her insides and snaking around her lungs. Why did she let Naruto do that? She should have watched him better. She should have told him to stop, she should have done something more productive than read, she should have-

“My first impression of you all is that I hate you.”

Naruto gasps, “No! You can’t say that! You don’t know us, you can’t just do that to us so quickly!”

Sakura doesn’t know what to think. Cold hands runs over her shoulders, and she feels a jab of icy dread in her throat.

Hatake-sensei chortles, his lone eye crinkling in one of the fakest smiles Sakura has ever seen. “Oho, but I can, you see. For I posses the thing you all will never have. Maturity.”

“That’s a lie! Sakura is the most mature person I know! She’s even more mature than the Hokage!” Naruto retaliates, and Sakura’s face flushes as he mentions her name.

Something niggles at the edge of her vision, and her eyes slide over to where her mother stands. Her mother is dead, and she looks back at Hatake-sensei but the words don't work in her mouth.

“Ah, yes, Haruno Sakura, _the_ best student in all of Konoha. If I remember correctly she is also a favorite of all, if not most, teachers.” He tells them, leaning to the side and placing his hands on his hips, “But I am not like most teachers.” There is a warning in his voice.

_‘You will fail, and failure is the only option.’_

Cold races to her veins, and she straightens her back. She folds her book closed and looks at her new sensei with a pleasant(and fake) smile, “I won’t fail you, Hatake-sensei!”

He snorts, “Don’t make me sound so old, call me Kakashi-sensei.”

She makes a pleased noise, but she knows it’s as fake as his smile. She is still cold. “Sure thing, Kakashi-sensei!”

“Alright, first thing’s first, let’s take this to the roof.” He says, and Sakura barely catches his hands mold into a sign before he poofs out of the room. Sakura deducts that he was a clone all along, but she’s not too sure. He seemed real…

Naruto screeches, throwing his hands in the air. “That loser just ran from us!”

“Then let's go after him,” Sakura demurs, and softly places her book in her bag. “He told us to meet him at the roof.”

“He is three hours late and now he wants us to go to him? What a teacher.” Sasuke stands from his seat, the legs of the chair clattering against the floor.

“Ha! The asshole finally speaks, I thought you’d gone mute because you were so quiet!” Naruto barks out.

Standing, she rolls her feet, enjoying the soft pops and cracks her ankles give her. Swinging the backpack over a shoulder, she makes her way to the door, a confident bounce in her step. “Come on, guys, he might’ve been late but that doesn’t mean we should disappoint!”

Sasuke grumbles something beneath the collar of his shirt, and slowly follows after her. She looks at Naruto expectantly, and he smiles at her, unaware of what she wants from him. She gestures for him to come to her, and he grunts and follows.

A smile curls on her lips, and they leave the room.

The halls seem longer now that she knows that this is her last time here.

They all make it outside quickly, and they find Kakashi-sensei sitting on the railing with a book opened in his hand. He doesn’t look interested as they approach, and as they stand awkwardly near him does he finally set his book down.

“Let’s introduce ourselves before we continue,” He says it like he’s been saying that line since forever. Cookie cutter language right there, and Sakura has to push down the scowl.

Naruto takes the lead, “And how’re we supp’sed to do that? Huh? I know these guys like the back of my fucking hand, what else am I gonna tell them?”

“Well,” Kakashi-sensei hums, and bumps the spine of his book on his chin in thought, “I am the only one who doesn’t know you. So I guess you could start with your name, what you like, dislike, hobbies, thoughts for the future, whatever. Blondie, since you seem so intent on putting me down, you can go first.”

Naruto snorts and crosses his arms tightly, “I am Uzumaki Naruto! I like ramen and Sakura, I dislike doing my laundry and Sasuke. My hobbies are pranking my neighbors and showing the world that I’m not a freak!”

Kakashi-sensei nods his head, and points to Sasuke. “You next.”

His scowl deepens. “I am _Uchiha Sasuke_ ,” he says sharply, “Get used to the name, Hatake. I don’t like anything. I hate everything. I have no hobbies. For the future, I want to kill a certain man.”

Sakura can feel Kakashi-sensei's eyes on her now, and she smiles, “I’m Haruno Sakura! I like flowers and hanging out with Naruto on my free time, I also like to read, go on walks, and talk. I don’t think I really dislike much. I garden on my freetime, so I guess that’s my hobby. I don’t see much for my future at the moment.”

Their sensei hums, and Sakura doesn’t know what to think of it. She hopes it’s a good hum, because she knows that when her neighbor gets mad he hums before he says anything.

“Good, good,” he says instead, “Now, I must inform you before we start anything that the chances of you passing my expectations are relatively low-”

“How low?” Sakura asks, interrupting him. She’d expected him to give her a nasty look of some type, but he doesn’t He looks pleased, actually.

“One in thirty five.”

Mental math isn’t exactly where she’s good in, but she knows she’s decent at it. “So we have a zero point zero two chance of passing?” She asks again, realizing that she probably wasted her time in the academy when she’s got a little more than two percent chance of passing. The frosty ball of anxiety comes again, nestled in her stomach and it rots at her skull. She can feel a migraine coming.

Kakashi-sensei waves his hands. “Yep. No one has passed me. Ever.”

It doesn’t make sense to her any more. One in thirty five, he isn’t old enough to have taken on thirty five genin squads and failed them if he’s only given one once a year. Nor can he have added them all up per person, because genin are only released in squads of three.

She opens her mouth to speak, but Sasuke beats her to it.

“The math isn't correct,” he says, his voice low “there is no way you could have failed thirty five squads, and the chances that you’ve been asked to lead a three man or five man squad is almost nothing. You’re _bullshitting_ us, aren’t you.”

“It seems that you are all pretty sharp chickens,” Kakashi says, “I’ll give you this, I’ll take you in consideration when I look at that sheet. But I want you all to impress me tomorrow when I take a look at your skills. Meet me at training ground three, and don’t eat anything that morning--you’ll throw it up.”

She sees it then. He isn’t real, he isn’t like her Mother, true til her dying breath, he isn’t like her Father, who doesn’t even bother lying. He is an entity all on his own, and she must solve him.

That migraine hits her like a club to the skull.

**Author's Note:**

> probably a multichapter thingy, maybe not. idk. 
> 
> come join a discord im in Genjutsu Support Group


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